"'The magic thing stung me,' replied Porcupine Killer."
The old medicine woman ceased her talk and lit the tobacco in her pipe with a brand from the fire. Flying Plover waited politely until he saw, by the clouds of tobacco smoke, that the pipe was well alight. Then, as his grandmother seemed to have forgotten to go on with the story, he said, "I wonder if that was truly the way fire first came to our tribe?"
Squat-by-the-fire glanced at him quickly, but never said a word. She knew that the little boy was trying to get her to go on with the story—and that was what she had not the slightest intention of doing. If she went on telling him stories as long as he would listen, neither of them would ever get any sleep, and her brain would become quite dry and brittle from too much inventing.
"I think Porcupine Killer must have been sorry that he did not have anything to cook at his fine, new fire," remarked the little boy.
The old woman was just going to tell him that people did not know anything about cooking in those days—but she didn't. Flying Plover was clever; but so was she. Instead of saying the words that so nearly slipped from her tongue, she gave a raspy little cough. Then, in a faint whisper, she said, "My throat is so sore from talking so much, that I fear all the skin is worn off the inside of it."
That seemed a very strange and interesting thing to Flying Plover.
"Oh, let me see it," he cried. "How long will it take to grow on again?"
His grandmother almost lost her temper at that. Anyway, she soon had him snug in bed; and it was not long before he was sound asleep.